Seas reacted to naval churning

The
theme

Although
physical laws are the same for hot soup and for the “stirred”
seas, things tend to become more complex when naval activities occur
in the North and Baltic Seas. This is because location, season and
applied forces are diverse in many respects in the latter case. This
would not matter so much if science had established a comprehensive
and sufficient coverage of temperature measures throughout a seawater
body a long time ago. Such a system was not available before WWII and
is still not available today. Only a few coastal stations recorded sea
surface temperatures since long time ago. This is by far too little as
far as climate research is concerned. Only a sufficiently complete
picture of the interior of the seas and oceans would help detect the
course of the climate. Such a hope was out of the sight of the
meteorologists in the early 20th century.

But
when the seas determine the pace of the weather and climate one can
turn ‘the table around’ by using meteorological data and citing
deviations from usual atmospheric wintertime conditions caused by the
turning about of waters of North and Baltic Sea. However, behind each
and every reasoning, there stands the overriding fact that, in the
autumn of 1939, some mechanism must have invited an arctic winter to
prevail in Northern Europe for four months after WWII had started. It
is a fact that an uncommon arctic winter could not have occurred
without a cause.

Before
proceeding further to the conditions concerning the winter 1939/40, a
reference may be made to the three cold and snow-rich war winters of
1939/40, 1940/41 and 1941/42, by outlining the interesting observation
made by a scientist from Kew Observatory at Richmond/UK in 194317:
“The present century has been marked by such a widespread tendency
towards mild winters that the “old–fashioned winters”, of which
one has heard so much, seemed to have disappeared for ever. The sudden
arrival at the end of 1939 of what was considered to be the beginning
of a series of cold winters was therefore all the more
surprising.

Since
the winters of 1878-79, 1879-80 and 1880-81, there have never been
such severe winters, three in succession, as those of 1939/40, to
1941/42.” He further points to another significant aspect with
regard to snow conditions in SE England: “Since comparable records
began in 1871, the only other three successive winters as snowy as the
recent ones (1939-1942)18
were those during the last war, namely 1915/16, 1916/17 and 1917/18,
when snow fell on 23%, 48% and 23% of the days, respectively”.
Should this statement not raise excitement and confirm outright that
‘great’ wars leave behind indelible fingerprints? The ‘surprise’
of three successive cold winters will be come up again at a later
stage. At this point it is to note the starting line: the polar winter
of 1939/40 came unexpectedly, as confirmed by contemporary WWII
witnesses.

Based
on the features of Europe’s northern seas, the following three
topics will be discussed:

Lost
west wind drift due to making the seas steaming.

Cooling
the seas too early.

Sea
ice conditions during winter 1939/40.

Europe’s
northern waters

North Sea

North
Sea is one of the principal factors in Europe’s climatology. On the
one hand, North Sea is a part of the North Atlantic Ocean and is like
a big bight. On the other hand, it curves into the landmasses of the
European continent. Climatic conditions are therefore transitory. Its
climate is neither maritime nor continental. Nevertheless, due to its
geographical location, prevailing westerly winds travelling through
the hemisphere within a zone of 2,000 kilometres breadth usually
ensure a temperate humid climate.

Britain,
the most western Atlantic outpost, has its weather influenced by
Atlantic depression and presumably would outline a general picture as
it follows: between predominant occurrences of depressions, there are
often small mobile anticyclones that bring a period of fair weather.
Sometimes large, stationary anticyclones effectively act as a 'block'
to the regular passage of depressions. These larger anticyclones can
often last for over a month and completely change the character of
wet, windy and cloudy weather of Britain. If one of these anticyclones

North
Sea diagonals (England – Continent)

Water depth

Southern
section

West/East

Middle
section

West/East

Northern
section

West/East

Temperature
°C

Surface

10/12.5
°C

8/15
°C

6/10
°C

7.5
m

11/13
°C

8/15
°C

5.5/10
°C

20
m

11/13
°C

7/13
°C

5.5/8.5
°C

30
m

11
°C

6.5/12
°C

5/7.5
°C

40
m

-

6/11
°C

4.5/6
°C

60
m

-

4,4
°C

4.5/3.5
°C

80
m

-

3,5

4.5/1.5

100
m

-

-

4/1.5

established
over Scandinavia and easterly winds on their southern side, they can
drive very cold air from the continent of Europe. In any of these
cases, North Sea plays a vital role in deciding Europe’s
climate.

The
principal
factors affecting the climate of any ocean and sea body interior are
temperature and salinity. The latter varies in the North Sea more than
in any other sea but is less related to the season. Seawater
temperatures vary according to depth and to seasons.

It
is of great importance to demonstrate developments in autumn 1939
according to statistics and observed air temperature data,
as seawater
and atmospheric temperatures are closely interconnected.

Water
depth in the North Sea can be roughly divided into two sections.
The southern section comprises a plateau south of a line running from
mid-England (Hull) to North Denmark that is mostly less than 40m deep.
The northern section is a triangle between North Denmark –Hull –
Shetland Islands with a water depth generally ranging between 60 and
120m (the deepest place is 263 m), and the submarine valley along the
Norwegian coast with depths ranging between240 and 350 metres, and
500-700m depths in Skagerrak. The inflow of warm water from the
Atlantic Gulf current enters the sea from the north and influences the
current system from the surface to the bottom in the northern part
only. The 40m deep southern plateau is hardly affected by the northern
water, but receives some Atlantic water via the Strait of Dover and
some freshwater from the rivers. Thus the North Sea is rich
indifferent water masses, which vary seasonally and fluctuate
annually. As all coastlines are subject to marked tidal forces,
considerable water masses actually vary on a daily basis.

The
annualapproximate
temperaturevariation datain three West-East diagonals across the North
Sea19isas
it follows:

Southern
section

Due
to the shallowness and tidal forces of the water body, its temperature
structure can be described as a homogeneous one (from surface to the
bottom), with small variations as the average temperatures indicate:
December (8.5°C), January (6.5-7°C), February (5.5°C), March (5°C),
April (6.5°C), suggesting that water very close to the coasts has lower
temperatures during the winter season. Between May and August,
temperatures increase from 8.5°C to 14.5°/17°C and decrease as it
follows

Depth

August

September

October

November

Surface,
West-East

14.5-17
°C

14-16
°C

12-13.5
°C

09°-10°
(*)

20
m, West-East

14-16
°C

15-16.5
°C

13.5-14
°C

9.5-11
°C

:

(*)
in mid North Sea, the figure is with 11.5° higher than in West &
East.

Fairly
homogeneous figures of the water body temperature, with 15°/16°C at
peak time and the lowest temperature in March (5°C), indicate that
the water body experiences anaverage change of about 1.5°C per month.

Northern
section

In
March, the lowest annual average temperatures at the surface of the
water ranged between 7°C in the northwest (Atlantic water) and 4.5°C
in the southeast (Dutch coast). At the end of August, the highest
average temperatures at the surface of the water rangedcorrespondingly
(NW and SE) between 13°C and 17.5°C in the Helgoland Bight.

From
May to August, a horizontal thermocline builds up but declines during
the autumn months. It is worth noting that while temperature level
increases at lower water levels (e.g. 20m, 40m) in autumn, it
decreases at the bottom (60m). It is therefore possible for the whole
water body to be warmer

in September than in August. While calculation of ‘monthly averages’
is an approximate figure, it nevertheless gives an indication that the
monthly decrease in temperature (or energy release) takes place in
small quantities only from 11°C in August to 4.5°C in March, i.e. on
an average it could be as little as just one degree per month.

Baltic
Sea

In
terms of size, the Baltic Sea is a mere ‘drop’ of water in the
world’s oceans, but thanks to its strategic location and specific
features it represents a ‘significant’ force and influences the
weather in the countries surrounding it. It is an excellent
location for the climatology study.

The
image demonstrates how important the Baltic Sea water
temperatures influences the

air
temperatures during the month of January

The
total area of the Baltic Sea is of 400,000 square kilometres, with an
average depth of 55m, including the Gulf of Bothnia (55-294m) and the
Gulf of Finland (30m). Except for the eastern part (Gdynia Bight with
a maximum of 114m), Southern Baltic is less than 50m deep.
Climatically speaking, an important feature of this sea is a 2,500m
high mountain ridge from the north to the south of Norway, drawing a
sharp line between maritime and continental belonging.ehind this
barrier continental and polar air have much easier access than in
areas where Atlantic air travels east at a low elevation level. This
frequently guarantees warm summers to Baltic countries by
significantly delayingthearrival of continental winter conditions.
Thereis hardly any other sea in the northern hemisphere which can
convincingly demonstrate theimportance of heat storage and release
process throughout all seasons as the Baltic Sea does it.

Actually,
very cold conditions cannot prevail on sea and in nearby coastal areas
over a longer period as long as the sea is open andnot iced.
Icing is a very critical point in regional climatology. Every sea area
covered with ice loses ten times less energy to the atmosphere than an
open sea area. The importance of heat flux can be clearly demonstrated
with temperature data records which show that winter average
temperatures at the seaside are considerablyhigher than farther inland
whereby temperature sometimes decreases in great leaps, i.e. by 1°C
per 50 km or more, depending on the distance from the coast.

From
mid-September to the end of February, when air is colder than
seawater, water temperature decreases between 13°C and 15°C, whichis
significantly more than that of the North Sea (9.5-11.5°C).
Thisactually means that the surface temperatures, with an average
ranging between 0°C (north) and 3°C (south) in January, quickly come
close to zero. Deeper waters (80 metres and below) have just 4-5°C,
while water column above varies according to the seasons20.
These temperature changes during various seasons are effective only
from surface to about 80m depth. While surface water reaches its peak
temperature by the end of August, lower levelsmay reach itspeak later
on (e.g. 40m with 10°C in late October). Therefore, all activities
that took place at sea in the autumn of 1939 could have had two
principal effects:

Turning
seawater masses about will force considerable warm water masses to
greater depths, which is to ‘resurface’ later thus
contributing to milder air (as usual) or delaying icing processes
by days or weeks.

Killing
of westerly winds

The
western European weather is famous for the predominant flow of wind
blowing from the North Atlantic above the Euro-Asian landmasses (from
west to east). The wind brings warm air from the depression but soaked
up with humidity from the ocean. In contrast, anticyclones influence
the weather conditions through high air pressure combined with dry and
cold air masses.

This
is immediately clear when comparing the climates of Amsterdam and
Moscow. The latter has similar latitude as the Netherlands, but the
Netherlands have cooler summers and milder winters. This is because
Moscow is situated away from the warming effects of the Gulf Stream
and other warm ocean currents that could keep winter temperatures
mild. Moscow has less humidity and less cloudy air.

Also
Northern Germany and Southern Scandinavia which have coastlines to
North and Baltic Sea have maritime climate caused by the warm westerly
winds of the Atlantic. Further inland or further east, the climate is
more continental: marked by greater diurnal and seasonal variations in
temperature, with warmer summers and colder winters.

These
conditions would have also prevailed during the winter of 1939/40 if
German Reichskanzler Adolph Hitler had not started the Second World
War. From the 1st of September 1939, huge naval war
machineries interfered in the common struggle between cyclones and
anti-depressions, between Low and High air pressure areas. To them,
North and Baltic Sea serve as a blueprint. Whether the seas are warm
or cold determines the prevalence of continental or maritime air. The
war machinery changed the weather blueprint so quickly and so
decisively that the westerly winds were already sealed off from
passing through Central Europe after a few weeks.

North
and Baltic Sea reaction

North
and Baltic Seas play their role according to the physical laws. By the
end of August, they had reached the highest seasonal heat capacity. At
this time, the upper water column (down to 30 meters depth) is about
10°C warmer than six months later, in March. If the seas are left in
peace and not more than usual winter winds and storms make waves and
other internal currents exchange the cold water for warm water at sea
surface, then seasonal cooling from September to December and March
occurs gradually, but close to long term statistical average. That is
what climatology tells ever since: “climate is average weather over
a long period of time”21.

However,
statistics become useless if a spoon is stirred forcefully in hot soup
or if naval means and forces interfere and turn seas up side down.
Warm water starts to steam. The more water is turned and twisted, the
more steam goes up. When more steam goes up, physical laws
require that rising water vapour is replaced by more heavy air.
Statistically, Britain is surrounded by warm water which ensures the
wet, windy, and cloudy weather character of The Isles during autumn
and winter more than during any other season. But sometimes large,
stationary anticyclones act effectively as a ‘block’ of the
regular passage of Atlantic depressions. This is exactly what happened
in autumn 1939. Seawater around Britain (particularly in the southern
North Sea, Helgoland Bight, and Baltic Sea) was forced to evaporation
at a rate above any other climate data average. Air above the seas
became ‘thin’ and needed replacement with ‘heavy’ air. This
replacement air needed to come from somewhere. Heavy air was
abundantly available in the depths of Northern Russia and in the
Arctic region. Consequently, cold air travelled from North to East, in
the direction of Western Europe. The NE winds are not suspected for
blocking the depressions from crossing Britain and Central Europe, but
should be regarded as a strong evidence that naval warfare acted in
North and Baltic Sea like a rapidly turned spoon in a cup filled with
hot soup. The next three subsections aim at confirming this picture,
discussing ‘losing the west wind’, ‘raining cats and dogs along
western war front’ and highlighting exceptional sea icing conditions
in North and Baltic Sea.

‘Seewarte’
awaits Atlantic depression

While
considering the faith of the west-wind during the months between
September and December 1939, one might receive an answer from
Seewarte. “Deutsche Seewarte”, the distinguished German
meteorological office in Hamburg, was under the supervision of the
Minister of Air Travel and Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force Hermann
Goering (between 1935-1945, as already mentioned in the Preface).
Although all weather information was classified as top secret by all
warring nations, the preparation of daily weather charts and weather
analysis was done with great efforts and care. Precise and best
possible forecasts were of the highest importance for naval, aerial
and military planning. The Seewarte did the job like other
Met-Offices: presentation of data, preparation of weather charts and
analyses. The daily analysts made numerous comments about an
unusual weakness of the west wind and passing of depressions. They
wondered, predicted and disputed that the west wind was lost or had
disappeared and none of the wartime meteorologists in charge ever
realised why. In the following section, some extracts from “Seewarte”
weather analysis are reproduced which concern the deviation of the
west wind or the movement of low air pressure areas.

Between
the 16-28th of September 1939: daily weather charts show a
high-pressure area between Iceland and Scotland. The most significant
comments of the Seewarte analysts are:

The 19th
of September 1939: cyclonic activities over the Arctic Ocean
(Nordmeergebiet) are intensive. The west-drift in the North will
consequently move more and more to the South.

The
23rd of September 1939: with the advance of air into Middle
Europe a more forceful cyclone can develop along this channel (Rinne)
which could extend its influence in the Middle Europe later.

Remark:
The two previous extracts show high expectation that cyclonic
activities in Middle Europe will resume soon. However, this did not
occur as indicated in the following extract, one week later.

The
29th of September 1939: general weather situation towards
the end of the month clearly reveals changes indicating the end of the
Indian summer spell, which leads to a period of increased cyclone
frequency in Europe.

Remark:
This also did not happen, as confirmed by the next extract.

The
13th of October 1939: the first effective gust of maritime
air has reached Northern Germany. A continuous west-wind-drift (WWD),
however, cannot be expected yet.

The
19th of October 1939: a broad, high-pressure bridge has
been formed between the Atlantic and the Scandinavian heights. Again
this results in a weather situation similar to those which have been
witnessed frequently before, during corresponding month, viz. a
high-pressure zone moving from the Atlantic via Southern Scandinavia
to Russia, with low-pressure disturbances to the North and South of
it.

The 23rd
of October 1939: usual weather is changing now and the high pressure
bridge which links the Azores high with the West Russian high is
broken up. A transition to a west wind situation is on the verge of
the German seas.

The 28th
of October 1939: since a high pressure bridge from Middle Scandinavia
to Scotland remains there, a further stream of cold air from the
Arctic Ocean (Nordmeerraum) is cut off.

The
2nd of November 1939: an unusual and explicit analysis is
given on change in the direction of wind: “Germany lies in the South
(Southern part) of the high-pressure area and mostly experiences winds
coming from East to North (NE- directions), which is clearly shown by
the climatic data from October: Hamburg reported winds from the
North-Eastern quadrant on almost two thirds of the dates observed (33%
easterly winds out of 65%) while North-Eastern winds accounted only
for a quarter (26%) of several previous years’ averages. Otherwise,
most frequent direction of the wind – South-West (24%) – accounted
for 9% of all cases. Thus the observations at this station alone show
what the weather charts of an extensive area would obviously indicate.”

Remark:
This is a very strong and clear indication that huge air masses moved
towards the North Sea (including southern part of Baltic Sea),
presumably caused by unusually high evaporation in this sea area.
While water of the North Sea was ‘stirred and turned’, ‘steam’
rose upwards into the sky causing air to flow in from Easterly
direction, which subsequently prevented low-pressure systems to travel
along the west-wind-drift channel, via the North Sea and Central
Europe, into the eastern hemisphere.

Data
for next four weeks are mixed. Four statements made during that month
may illustrate the situation as seen by the analysts who thought they
were worth mentioning at that time.

The
5th of November 1939: it appears that now – like during
many earlier years – a west-wind-drift with lively cyclonic
activities will begin to move over Europe at about the middle of the
month.

The
14th of November 1939: it seems that a mainly sectional
circulation is going to happen in the general weather situation: its
pressure field will be characterized by a long, high-pressure zone –
Azores–Southern Germany–Southern Russia – and west-wind-drift
like turbulence activity in the North of these regions.

The
29th of November 1939: West
Siberian high is slowly retreating towards the East thereby allowing
the disturbance coming from the West to penetrate still deeper into
the regions of European Russia.

The
30th of November 1939: a very distinct west-wind weather
situation prevails over the North and Middle Europe.

Expectations
of ‘lively cyclonic activities’ did not materialize. At that time,
weather men could not imagine seawater changes caused by devastating
war machinery.

Westerlies
gone

During
the first few days of December, we witnessed the attempts of rather
weak cyclonic storms to reclaim their common travel path from the
Atlantic to the Eastern hemisphere. By the 7th of December
1939, a high pressure field forms near Aachen (West Germany/Belgium),
stretching to Norway, the ‘last straw’ that lead to severe winter
conditions. At this time, any Atlantic air power had been lost for
Western Europe, as the ‘Neue Zürcher Zeitung’ brilliantly
acknowledged in its issue dated the 14th of January 1940
(extract):

“Severe
cold which invaded the whole Europe in the course of this week was by
no means an accidental phenomenon which settled in surprisingly. It
rather constitutes the peak of a development which had its beginning
in the first week of December. Towards its end, high pressure began to
stabilize in North and Middle Europe, keeping away the low Atlantic
cyclones from the continent and diverting them mainly through
Greenland and Iceland waters, to the Sea…. As soon as occasional
Atlantic depressions moved East, through the North and Baltic Sea,
they were immediately replaced by the entry of cold air coming from
the Greenland area.”

Supremacy
of High Pressure from North Cap to Gibraltar

Atlantic
low pressure areas are barred to enter Central Europe

So
far, this is an impressive analysis. What the weather expert of NZZ
had not realised is the fact that the ‘blocking’ of the westerlies
had occurred since September 1939 and that the war at sea could have
been responsible for it.

Four
further excerpts from the daily Seewarte analysis demonstrate how the
‘Seewarte’ civil servant on duty judged the developments from
December.

The
1st of December 1939: a quite
distinct Atlantic frontal zone of the last few days is
disintegrating.

The
8th of December 1939: it appears that the influx of warm
air from the West is stronger than the retreating stream of cold air,
so that the high pressure bridge might stay, although the English
frontal zone is currently progressing very slowly towards the
East.

The
19th of December 1939: A high-pressure ridge stretches….(etc).
These conditions, however, are not likely to exist. The same pressure
ridge is attacked from two sides and has gained more than 10mb in the
past 24 hours….

The 21st of
December 1939: a high pressure area, which installed yesterday over
the Northern coast of Scotland, lies today over Central Germany, with
a central pressure of 1,034mb. The heavy fall in pressure over the
Artic Sea area (Nordmeerraum) has produced a drop there.

After this
date, the West Wind Drift was definitely barred from entering Western
Europe. The return of the Ice Age conditions became a consequential
result.

Changed
wind direction

The
foregoing investigation emphasized the significance of the changes
observed in wind direction, in Hamburg, in October 1939. Wind direction
had dramatically changed from prevailing SW winds to dominating NE
winds, due to the churning of the sea in Western Europe.

At
this stage, it might be worth mentioning that a research conducted by
Drummond22
for Kew Observatory (London), in the early 1940s, mentioned that
prevailing wind directions in South-West England during 155 winters,
between 1788 and 1942, had only 21 easterly resultants, whereby the few
winters 1814, 1841, and 1940 had resultants from NE to ENE. Another few
winters since 1841 (1845, 1870, 1879, 1891, 1895, 1904, 1929) had
prevailing SSE to ESE winds. With the exception of the winters of 1801
and 1804, all these 21 winters with predominant easterly winds had
temperatures below the average (40.1°F = 4.5°C). While eleven of the
above winters had mean temperatures between 34°F and 36°F, only six
with westerly resultants had means lower than 37°F, these being: 1820,
1830, 1847, 1855 and 1886.

Observing
the way Drummond highlights the exceptionality of the first war winter,
one can only wonder why he seemed to have thought that such things
happened simply out of the blue. While expressing some surprise, not
even the prominent German meteorologist Richard Scherhag made anything
out of his conclusion: “the famous winter of 1939/40 was the
consequence of a general decrease in general circulation”23.
And what reduced circulation in the first place? Neither Scherhag nor
any of his numerous academic fellows around the world ever asked
themselves this question.

Why
did it rain cats and dogs?

The
picture

First
and most important picture: when there is less humidity in the air, it
is easier for the cold air to take control. During the winter season,
when the Northern Atmosphere is drier, general circulation decrease
makes it easier for the polar air to travel to southern latitudes and to
determine lower temperatures in many other regions. Some may even wonder
about the appearance of such arctic conditions. January 1940 reflected
this exact situation. North America, China and Europe froze under
extreme low temperatures and there was plenty of snow everywhere.
However, the record winter of 1939/40 in North Europe was ‘homemade’
due to naval warfare in its seas and to the forming of ‘dry air’
which may have brought its small share24.

The
next important picture is about the situation in which precipitations
actually ‘dilute’ the atmospheric humidity. If it rains abundantly
in one place, precipitations statistically diminish in other places
until humidity restores average equilibrium again. This process may take
more than a few weeks. If war can cause abundant precipitations during
the winter season, nature needs much more time to ‘fill’ the gap
during the summer season. So far this information represents only
physical laws and not facts.

World
War Two had hardly started when it began to rain excessively in Western
Europe, from Berlin and Basel to Paris, Amsterdam and London, for three
months, i.e., 200% above average in September, 300% in October, and more
than 200% in November. In the Western, Middle
and Southern Germany, the quantity of rain recordedat most
observationstationswas more than double, in some cases even 3.5 times
more than usual: Augsburg 366%; Noerdlingen 362%, Kaiserslautern 336 %,
Wuerzburg 316 %. Southeast England recorded rainfall of more than three
times above average inOctober 1939. Greenwich saw a higher rainfall only
in 1888 and, before that, in 1840. Greenwich total for October
(6.16 in.) and November (4.13 in.) together –10.29 inches – was the
highest ever since recordinghad begun at Greenwich. Similar conditions
had been observed at Camden Square (London), where hours of rainfall are
recorded as it follows: October 77.3 hours, November 96.7 hours.
These were 50 hours higher than the average. Some places at the
southern end of Maginot/Westwall Line recorded 30 days of rain during
October (e.g. Freiburg,); a number of other locations had up to 24 days
of rain.

In
November 1939, weather conditions were not much better than in October.
In general, it was a bit too warm and too wet, 200% more thannormal for
that season, inHannover, Aachen, Kassel, Frankfurt a.M., Magdeburg, Ulm,
Wuerzburg. This weather conditions actually saved France from being
attacked and invaded in 1939. On the 19th of October, the “Yellow”
plan for the invasion of France was finalised. On 7th of
November, the beginning of the invasionplan was postponed for the first
time. A Blitzkrieg was not advisable in such muddy soil conditions.
Soldiers and tanks would have been defeated by ‘General Mud’. Hitler
wanted to go aheadand would have sent the Wehrmacht across the boarders
in late 1939, but, due to excessively wet autumn weather
conditions,theinvasion was postponed until June 1940.

The
appearance of excessive rain in West Europe
raises a paramount question: where did all water vapors come from?

Where
did all the water come from?

Actually one
can discuss the matter under two aspects: (1) where did excessive water
vapor come from? (2) how was it brought down? The first aspect is more
important for this investigation than the second one because it serves
as evidence that naval forces increased evaporation rate, which means
that the seas lost a considerable part of their seasonal heat budget too
early and, this way, their capacity to keep polar air at bay decreased
tremendously during pre-winter months.

Since
the 1st of September
1939, a huge defense area from Basel to Dunkerque (Maginot Line) and
from Basel to Emden (Westwall) was activated and manned with one million
soldiers on each side. From now on, small and big encounters, shelling,
air fights, and aerial bombings occurred frequently. On the 7th
of September 1939, The New York Times reported: “First
substantial clash saw 700 French tanks and planes moving seven miles
over the Saarland border, while 300 airplanes attacked German positions
in the Aachen industrial region and munitions area, some 125 miles
farther north”.

Meanwhile,
exploding sea mines and depth charges, shelling among enemy ships or
ship versus coastal battery, and thousands of ship movements churned and
turned around the waters of North and Baltic Sea. Evaporation rate
increased. Soaring water vapour attracted cold air flowing in from
north-easterly directions, pushing the excessive water vapour in
south-westerly direction towards Westwall and Maginot Line, including
South England. A record rain period started there due to three
reasons:

Naval
activities ‘produced’ a high and constant humidity all over the
western war front, including SE of England, North of France, North
of Switzerland, Bavaria, and, further north, the Netherlands, the
West, Middle and South of Germany (including Berlin and Silesia).

Water
vapour condenses using the molecules as condensation nucleus.
Condensation occurs on a wide variety of aerosol particlese.g.
particles of dust, salt, desertsand or smoke. Ambushes and burning
down of villages and cities in Poland, in September, and frequent
military encounters along the front lines produced abundant
condensation nuclei. Clouds could form and ‘burst’ into rain.

Air
coming in from north-easterly direction was cold. When high humid
air laid over Western Europe and resisted being pushed farther
south, arriving air would cool down the high humid air and it would
inevitably rain.

The
scenario was perfect. Plenty of water vapour in the atmosphere, abundant
condensation nuclei around and a constant arrival of cold air from NE
made it rain cats and dogs in Western Europe.

Helgoland
Bight water temperature

Reliable
seawater temperature data are scarce. 100 years ago, temperatures were
measured randomly and at sea surface. That makes data not very
convincing. Nevertheless, on the North Sea island of Helgoland, about 50
km off Germany’s coast, sea surface temperatures had been taken since
1872. In 1954, Erich Goedecke25
from Hamburg investigated data series from 1872 until 1950 and observed
the following changes:

·A modest temperature rise since 1915
(World War I had just started) lasting until about 192026,
varying in a narrow band until 1929.

·A strong rise occurred since 1929 until
1939.

·Mean temperature decreased dramatically
since 1939 until 1942, then reverted back to the increasing trend of
1929-1939.

One
should not rely on this type of data because they can be conditioned by
a number of reasons, e.g. too shallow and tidal waters, etc. However,
the sudden turnaround in 1939 is interesting as it came simultaneously
with the commencement of WWII. Since the 1st of September,
huge naval forces and supply ships stayed or navigated close to
Helgoland. For a couple of weeks, mine laying flotillas paved huge areas
with sea mines. Helgoland roadsteads had become start- and return point
for many naval missions. September suddenly showed a 1°C higher
deviation than during 60 pervious years, with a record extreme decline
during October 1939 and lower than usual average from thereon. If these
data tell anything, they confirm that there is a link between naval
activities and diminishing heat capacity of North and Baltic Sea,
earlier and more lasting than one would usually expect. This means the
cooling of seas and attracting arctic air flowing in. Early sea icing
and prolonged ice duration are other evidential points which establish a
connection between naval war and weather formation.

Sea
Icing winter 1939/40

Icingalong
the Danish, German and Finnish coasts started early and sea ice
conditions lasted longer thanin dozens of previous years. For example,
in December 1938, ice formation started early due to a sudden cold
spell, but it lasted only for two to three weeks. The winter of1938/39
is listed as a quite moderate one, in fact, the warmest for decades.
Circumstantial evidences throwing light tothe war winter of1939/40 are
manifold and include the following facts concerning sea ice:

·suddenness
with which icing started;

·early
start and longer persistence of ice;

·severity
of icing;

·long
duration of the icyperiod caused by two cold waves, one in January and
another onein February 1940.

However,
icing had different features in different places. This applies
particularly to coastal areas at Germany’s North Sea coast on one
hand, and Southern Baltic Sea on the other, where the most intensive
naval activities took place. This will be outlined in two of the
following items. But first we will give a brief description of the
Danish and Swedes water circumstances and a final picture will
emerge from Northern Baltic Sea where raging Winter War between Russia
and Finland left its marks on sea icing.

Denmark
– Sweden

First
ice was reported around mid December, which increased soon in the inner
and closed waters and later on outside this area. The number of ice days
had generally been large, a maximum of 115 days. While 34 stations
reported more than 100 days, 99 stations reported 75-100 days. Last ice
was reported in the Sounds, on the 19th of April 1940. Due to
an early start of the winter, there were the severest ice conditions on
sea for many decades. The lowest temperatures recorded were in December
–22.2°C, in January –24.3°C, in February –27.4°C, and in March
–22.0°C. Ships were to be convoyed and accompanied by icebreakers
through the Kattegat East-channel if the supplies were to reach
Copenhagen. These proceedings were not accomplished without damages to
ships convoyed, as well as to accompanying icebreakers.27
The coldest month in Copenhagen, viz. February, usually has a mean
temperature of 0°C.

North
Sea – Helgoland Bight

Icing
and ice floats emerged on river Elbe on the 16th of December
1939. In Hamburg, about 100 kilometres of river upstream from Helgoland
Bight, at a mere 80 km distance from the Baltic Sea, there had been
constant temperatures of sub-zero degrees Celsius since the 8th
of December. Icing intensified massively since the 26th of
December and extreme ice conditions maintained for 90 days, until
mid-March 1940.

First
ice at Helgoland Bight occurred on the 17th of December, in
Tönningen, at a distance of about 80 km from Helgoland, and was
immediately followed by all other German North Sea stations south of
Tönningen, until the 21st of December. Only at the most
northern station of the island of Sylt28,
icing started about 2 weeks later, a clear indication that deeper waters
in more northern parts of North Sea had more heat reserves than shallow
southern sea areas, which also saw much more naval activities. In the
latter case, ice stayed for 60 to 70 days (until the end of February),
in the Elbe river delta for 70 to 102 days, at Tönningen for 100 days,
and at north of Tönningen for 60 days, from early January until early
March.

Southern
Baltic Sea

Conditions
for building up the ice differed in three ways from the average of
previous years.

1)Even though ice started to form in the very North of Scandinavia
very early, solid sea ice developed at usual time.

2)Ice formation started at first in the southern Baltic Sea as
early as mid-December 1939, and

3)full icing in the Gulf of Finland started only with the cold wave
ofthe 14 –24th of January 1940.

These
events should not have come so much as a surprise if naval activities
since the 1st of September 1939 are considered:

B)Germans laid a number of mine fields particularly at the south of
Danish waters, with several thousands of sea mines. Denmark also laid
sea mines.

C)German Navy patrolled Western Baltic Sea intensively day and
night. Danish and Swedish Navies were more active in coastal waters than
during peacetime.

D)German Navy trained all their crews, developed weapons and tested
them in this water.

E)Since defeat and occupation of Poland in the end of September
1939, navigation and transportation increased many times.

In
the South, at Greifswald Bodden (an open bight SE of the island of
Rügen), icing started on the 18th of December 1939. Solid
ice remained in place without interruption until the 4th of
April 1940. Last ice disappeared on the 11th of April
1940.

Western
Baltic, presumably including Bornholm, was temporarily ice-covered. We
cannot provide a complete picture of southern coast from Lübeck to
Königsberg (Kaliningrad) as it is claimed that German surveillance data
have been lost. Here are some individual data instead:

The
19th of December 1939: ice reported inKiel Channel (from Elbe
to Kiel), Lübeck and Travemünde, remained therefor three months.

The
20th of December 1939: first ice from Stralsund to Palmerort.
Since the 1st of January 1940, solid ice continued until
early April.

The
21st of December 1939: ice reported in Schlei (north of Kiel)
was to stay until the 31st of March 1940.

The
28th of December 1939: ice which was reported in Flensburg
(at Danish border) lasted tillthe 28th of March 1940.

“A
survey was conducted on ice covering the Swedish coast during the
particularly cold winter of 1939/40. As regards the thickness of ice, it
was generally greater than usual. Thus the values vary between 75-95
centimetres in the harbours of the Gulf and Sea of Bothnia while the
normal is of about 70-75 cm. In the harbours of the Baltic, with the
exception of the most southerly ones, the thickness was of 30-60 cm
compared to the normal of 25-35 cm. The value of 40-60 cm at the Swedish
west coast is about two times the normal value.”

The
waters around Finland had not seen as much ice as in the war winter of
1939/40 since 1883. And from the 30th of November the region
was especially affected by the most devastating winter war ever carried
out under the Arctic Circle, where the sun never shines for many weeks.
On land, the Russian Red Army attacked with more than 300,000 men on a
front of one thousand kilometres. At sea, the Russian Baltic Fleet
attacked Finnish shore batteries on islands and coastal points with big
shells. Submarines operated in the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of
Bothnia, and laid many thousands of sea mines. Finish Navy was small but
still operational. Due to high naval activities, the picture of icing
seems to be unclear, which is not the case. It actually confirms that
naval activities influenced substantially sea-icing processes.

Just
to remind, sea ice formation started first in the southern Baltic. In
Hanko/Finland (at the western entrance in the Gulf of Finland), icing
started on the 27th of December 1939; solid ice formed on the
4th of January 1940; end of ice cameon the 7th of
May 1940, at almost the same time as in Helsinki. However, on the 15th
of January 1940, the Gulf of Finland was still open as far as Pellinki.
The Gulf of Bothnia was also open in most of its parts. Ice then formed
rapidly although the Gulf of Bothnia is far in the North and has a depth
of over 200 metres – in the Baltic Sea area the deepest water –
holding considerable heat for a long period even during cold winters. An
‘ice-bridge’ between Turku and the island of Åland (maximum depth
of 30 m) formedon the 6-7th of January 1940, about 2 ½ weeks
earlier than usual.

There
is no other validexplanation for any deviation in ice formation from
earlier averages than the war activities at sea. Most of the factors
relevant totheBaltic Sea phenomena are the long open sea areas in the
Gulf of Finland, a clear indication that, due to military activities, a
high mixing of water took place and delayed ice formation. On the other
hand, early formationof the ‘Turku-Åland ice bridge’ showed that
the water of that area had already cooled down enough to freeze; in this
case, more than two weeks earlier than in a place like Hanko, less than
100 km away.

Some
further ice forming data, chronologically:

Mid-October
1939: some lakes and rivers froze in Northern and middle of
Norrland/Sweden, as well asin the NW of Svealand (Middle Sweden), which
usuallyhappens only towards the end of the month.

The
8th of December 1939: navigation was closed at Kalix, a
Northern port in the Gulf of Bothnia.

The
11th of December 1939: navigation was closed at Oulu. Last
vessel sailed on the 7th of December.

The
19th of December 1939: navigation was closed in several ports
in the Gulf of Bothnia, except for those which had icebreaker assistance
until the end of December or middle of January.

The
9th of January 1940: heavy ice in
Riga – navigation possible for powerful steamers only.

The
13th of January 1940: Gulf of Bothnia. A minesweeper and two
patrol boats dropped depth bombs in an attempt to cripple a Russian
submarine, which had trailed a small Finnish steamer, Bore,
through the international waters of the Gulf of Bothnia. (NYT, the
14th of January 1940)

The
15th of January 1940: the Finnish ice expert Erkki Palosuo
made the following meteorological assessment31:
“By the 15th of January, the atmospheric pressure in
Greenland had reached a remarkably high level, 1,065mb. As a low
pressure of 995mb simultaneously prevailed in Central Russia, very cold
air began to flow westward at high speed from the northern side of this
low pressure and a very severe frosty period began inthe region of
theBaltic. The outbreak of cold air resulted in an independent ‘cold
air plug’ (Kaltluftpfropfen) in Germany, which persisted in the area
for nearly a week. On the 24th of January, the cold air plug
in the German area began to move towards the Baltic region from where,
reinforced, it pushed back to German territory on the 7th of
February. On the 12th of February, its centre was in the
region of Hamburg from where, moving slowly, it arrived in East Germany
around the 20th of February.” This assessment is a
convincing explanation for the severely ‘under cooled’ North and
Baltic Sea, particularly Helgoland Bight and Southern Baltic Sea. On the
12th and 13th of February, temperatures in Hamburg
were down to – 29°C. Hamburg thus became an arctic cold
centre.

Chapter
summary

While
the previous chapter described the severity of war winter 1939/40 on one
hand, and the naval activities during four pre-war months on the other,
this chapter attempted to link anthropogenic causes with corresponding
reactions in regional environment. As navies churned huge sea areas
about, the evaporation of the seas increased and eventually changed the
prevailing winds, declined the movement of the Atlantic depression on
common routes and caused record deviations of the sea water
temperatures. At least in one case, the build-up of sea ice conditions
in the North and Baltic Seas demonstrates several aspects of the naval
war and of its implication in environmental issues.

The
events presented above are not mere incidents. Why were North and
Central Europe affected and why Hamburg became a ‘cold air plug’?
This city is closely placed between two seas that were most heavily
churned during the pre-winter months. Why Southern Europe, Switzerland
and the Mediterranean region were not dragged into cold sphere? Why
excessive rain occurred along a busy war front between France and
Germany while the regions with heavy naval activities only four hundred
kilometres further north, from Helgoland to Königsberg, saw less rain
than usual? Why sea-icing started more powerfully in the coastal waters
of Germany than in an area 1,000 km farther north in Finish waters? All
questions could be convincingly explained as being the result of sudden
naval activities at sea.

An
interesting comparison between global and USA temperature trend,
in USA a decrease cam in 1933 (see ‘Greening of Greenland,
page ) , while the overall trend change in war winter
1939/40

The
graph is about contribution to global warming, to which nature
is contributing 55%, shipping and other ocean uses 20%, while
CO2, Naval War, and ‘other’ effects (cities, roads,
deforestation etc) contribute each about 10%, as estimated by
the author..

Country
share CO2 emission in 1999

The
impact of naval warfare is well demonstrated by the sudden
extreme sea icing in the coastal waters of Germany,

Naval
activities in the German Bight in autumn 1939 result in the pick
in September and subsequent rapid cooling, B/W p.105

The
winter temperatures in Hamburg are usually around +/- zero,
while the graph shows, that during winter 1939/40 (10 Dec. to 31
March) the naval war pushed temperatures to record lows.